Moyes decides on short-term Europa League risk for longer-term gain

Moyes decides on short-term Europa League risk for longer-term gain

When West Ham players received two days off at the beginning of this week from David Moyes,

eyebrows may have been raised.

The manager, who was regarded as one of the last of the old school,

did not respond conventionally to a 5-0 beating.

However, as he blamed a busy schedule and the resulting exhaustion for his team’s humiliation,

he was rarely able to have his players running laps around Rush Green.

The Hammers are back in play tonight, so Moyes is sort of in a Catch-22 situation.

Nevertheless, any reprieve has not been permanent.

Under alternative circumstances, the West Ham manager would have been

tempted to rest his starting lineup on the evening of Freiburg’s visit to London Stadium,

even though his team has already advanced safely to the Europa League knockout stages.

For example, despite playing through injuries in recent weeks,

Lucas Paqueta started five games in 16 days following the international break, and at the same time,

Tomas Soucek and Nayef Aguerd did not miss a minute of action. Since moving from Southampton,

James Ward-Prowse has started every Premier League and European match.

Moyes understands that a loss to the Germans would simply cause further problems later on,

adding two more games to the schedule in the form of a knockout play-off in February,

but a point is still needed to guarantee first place in Group A.

For the Hammers, who had the group decided going into the last matchday of

each of their two previous European campaigns, this is an unusual situation of danger.

Moyes trained a number of the club’s young players during both the trip to

FCSB in Romania last season and the home dead-rubber against Dinamo Zagreb two years prior.

Though fearful of the threat posed by Freiburg,

who thrashed Olympiacos 5-0 the previous day and have only been defeated by the Hammers this season,

it is expected that Moyes will urge his senior players to go to the well once more tonight.
“Gaming isn’t really my top priority,” the Scottish man stated yesterday.

“I consider the upcoming match. Although the Premier League will always come first for me,

the cup tournaments now hold a particular place in our hearts.

“We’ve been to a semi-final and won a final, and we’re now seeing these

cup competitions as something we must take as seriously as we can.”

The Champions League group stage finish last night made clear just how difficult

it could be for Moyes’s team to advance if they don’t win their group,

as the runner-ups will undoubtedly be eliminated from the top division.

Even though a draw like that would be glamorous,

you get the feeling that, at this point, they would like to avoid playing AC Milan or Benfica.

“The games are coming thick and fast as well,

and so we’ll try and prepare and get the players ready,” Moyes continued.

“We’ll put out a team that we think can go and win each game,

and we’ll try to do that against Freiburg, too.”

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